Climate Justice Month calls UUs to new campaign
Through Earth Day, series of invitations to join Commit2Respond, a new climate justice campaign.
“I used to have to bring twelve different sets of lenses to every meeting,” said Vlassidis Burgoa, who identifies as indigenous, Latina, immigrant, queer, working class, clergy, UU, and Catholic. “Many power dynamics, including within our own denomination, at times force us to silence core parts of ourselves.”
Climate Justice Month emphasizes the links between these challenging issues. Launched on World Water Day, March 22, and running through Earth Day, April 22, Climate Justice Month offers daily inspirations and ideas via email and on the Commit2Respond website, and provides resources for learning more, planning worship services that connect environmental issues to economic and social issues, and sharing ideas.
Since being approached by the Commit2Respond organizers, Vlassidis Burgoa feels like she has been invited to bring all of her identities to all of the work of the church. “It’s a way of embodying our theology, of being a spiritual practice, so you don’t leave climate concerns only with the environmental justice committee.”
Alex Kapitan, the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Congregational Advocacy and Witness program coordinator, explains that Commit2Respond is a tool, started through a grassroots effort and developed by the collaboration of eight different UU organizations, and Climate Justice Month is an invitation to use that set of tools and resources.
On the Commit2Respond website, organizers have developed a set of activities to focus attention on the urgent need for a different response to climate change, leading to commitments for individuals or households to long-term climate justice work.
Kapitan said the idea was to create a collaborative opportunity for people from around the globe to participate and chronicle the things they are doing to change thinking and actions around climate change and then to share with each other. Commit2Respond is less a to-do list than a suggestion box, with the end goal of encouraging people to think holistically about justice work. Using the month between World Water Day and Earth Day seemed a perfect time to invite people into the conversation, and Kapitan hopes that this experience will provide congregations with a valuable resource for planning for the next calendar year.
For Vlassidis Burgoa, the collaborative and grassroots foundations of Commit2Respond have brought joy to the hard work of shifting the paradigm. “It is a way of holding ourselves accountable to each other for all the work that we do. It is a holistic journey where we don’t have to leave parts of ourselves behind in order to be heard.”
Photograph (above): Unitarian Universalists march in the People’s Climate March in New York City in September 2014 (© David Vita, courtesy Commit2Respond). See sidebar for links to related resources.
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